


Undying Need To Scream

by northdakotas



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Boys Being Boys, Gen, M/M, This is one of those, hermann loves him shhh, it's kinda sad and kinda not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 03:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17614274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northdakotas/pseuds/northdakotas
Summary: Hermann Gottlieb rooms with an emotionally unstable biology major whom he both resents and worries for on the daily.





	Undying Need To Scream

Newton stumbled into the room, body a jittering mess as it usually was when returning to his and Hermann’s dorm. The birds outside their window had just begun their incessant chirping. The door mechanically whirred and beeped as it locked behind him but Newton was in no state of mind to care, kicking off the single shoe that had managed to stay on his foot and stomping away from the door. He turned on his desk lamp and practically threw himself into his chair, all blissed out despite the shaking and the bags under his eyes and the bloodshot of his sclera and the steady loosening of his clothes. He bounced his leg up and down and up and down while he waited for Hermann’s six o’clock alarm to go off. He just wanted to sleep and Hermann stored all of his medication where Newton couldn’t get it by himself.

Logically, this was a smart choice and Newton couldn't fault his roommate for that-- however, in a time like this, when he is bouncing off of all four walls of their enclosed living space, he craves nothing more than the sweet release of sleep his high-dosage melatonin gives him. Hermann's own reasons for locking away the medication were just as valid as Newton's assumed reasons: Hermann mostly did it out of fear of what could happen if he didn’t but Newton seemed to find other substances to abuse even when his own prescriptions were safely locked away. There was only so much Hermann could do to protect the biologist from himself.

Sure enough at six o’clock, the gentle sound of wind chimes filled the small dorm room and Newton perked up-- if it was even possible to get perkier --waiting to see the tell-tale signs Hermann was waking up. His shoulders would rise and fall a little quicker, and he would stretch out letting out a muffled grunt from where his face was buried in his pillow. He’d roll to the ladder attached to the bed and carefully making his way down, always keeping the pressure on his left leg until he could grab his cane that leaned against the wall. Newton watched with wide eyes as Hermann did those things, then batted his eyelashes when Hermann settled his glasses on his nose.

“Newton,” he said, adjusting the frames slightly then spinning his finger to suggest Newton needed to face the wall. “Eyes closed, you know the drill.”

Some would say that Hermann is only enabling Newton’s poor choices, but what more could he do. He just needed to survive being Newton’s roommate until the year was over and then he could apply for a different roommate next go around. The letters they had exchanged before deciding to room together had painted a very different picture of who Newton was then when Hermann had actually met the other man face to face. In his letters, Newton had so much passion for the things he discussed whether it was the biology of lesser known species or the biotech that was being invented in China that he’d love to see for himself some day. Hermann never inquired as to why, when they met, Newton seemed like a mannequin just going through the motions until the night when suddenly he’d go out and come back all shaken out and manic.

Hermann suspected Newton only wrote to him in this manic state but the handwriting didn’t suggest that was correct. His second best assumption was that Newton was abusing the medications he had been prescribed to take during the school year, so Hermann had started keeping them safely tucked away in the closet safe he’d brought from home. Even when he did that Newton continued leaving at around seven at night and returning nine hours later an ecstatic mess of a man. At some point, Hermann just gave up trying to figure out his roommate. It was upsetting to see the bright young man in this state, in his letters Hermann had been so sure that Newton Geiszler had the potential and the drive of ten men his age but the strung-out sight that rocked back and forth in his desk chair told a completely different story.

He punched the code in, looking at the three bottles and grabbing the one that would help him sleep. At least it was a Saturday. At least he was still alive. How Newton maintained his grades Hermann would never know nor would he ever dare ask for fear of being an accomplice by proxy. He opened the bottle, tipping two pills into his palm, closed the bottle, placed it back into the safe and locked it once more. Hermann turned, walking to Newton’s side of the room and holding out the two pills smelling alcohol from the arm's length distance he stood from the other man. Quickly closing his palm before Newton could grab the medication, Hermann moved to the fridge in their room. He pulled out a bottle of water and half of a ham and cheese sandwich he’d been meaning to save for lunch later in order to avoid the dining hall but… he could tolerate the bustling room of the student centre so long as Newton wasn’t developing stomach ulcers.

“You need to eat first, I don’t think it’s safe to take this on a stomach that is only acid and alcohol.” Hermann handed over the sandwich, sitting in his own chair across from Newton's, the beds having been lofted for the sake of symmetry. He dared a small smile at the memory, who would have known the biologist could be so particular about room layout when, more often then not, he'd toss formaldehyde scented clothing onto Hermann's side of the room.

He watched diligently as Newt slowly picked apart the sandwich, an extreme contrast to the man who had entered the dorm. Maybe he’ll fall asleep without the medication, Hermann thought wistfully-- he knew it would never actually happen, they’d been in this situation more than once, but it was nice to think that maybe a miracle could happen. _If there is room at the seder for an orange._ The slow picking and pulling of the sandwich, layer by layer, was so focused and exact that it made Hermann wonder what kind of things Newton's brain whispered to him about the things he did. If he couldn't control his emotions the least he could do was control his bites.

“I finished,” Newt said, his voice all rough as if he’d been breathing sand in his free time. “Pills please, Mr Gottlieb.”

Hermann extended his hand with the medication and the water bottle choosing to ignore the formal address at the end of Newt’s comment. He made sure the medicine had been taken and that it wasn’t hiding below Newt’s tongue or between his cheek and the gums. When he was satisfied there was no more need to worry (about this controllable situation at least) Hermann made his way back up the ladder and into his bed not daring to close his eyes until he heard Newton climb under his own covers and his breathing to even out.

The wait was never long.

\---

Dream Newton Geiszler was much different than real Newton Geiszler. For example, dream Geiszler didn’t leave for nine hours and then come back so that his roommate could give him medication. Dream Geiszler had six P.h.D.s and only shared a _lab_ with Hermann Gottlieb (who was a doctor with ten-year experience). Dream Geiszler had tattoo sleeves, never worried about sleep because he somehow always managed to get enough to function, and helped write books and important papers that helped save the world from monsters. From kaiju. In comparison, real Newton Geiszler made poor decisions and probably wouldn’t be able to get two full sleeves of tattoos without leaving chunks of blank space out of fear.

He loathed the real.

Dreaming was much easier than interacting in the real world, Newt found, and if he did a certain list of things before sleeping he was able to control his dreams with almost haunting precision. If he wanted to create a life he could and if he wanted to destroy it then he would, a God of his own creation. He had friends and a boss and people that cheered for him and people who asked questions he couldn’t answer who then later got eaten by the same monster that would create a monster. If Newt let it. He wouldn’t, not if Hermann was around. Who knew lab partners were so effective at stopping poor decision making (to an extent) in both real and dream life.

Newt would write down his dreams when he woke up, so he could remember them if he wanted to go back to a specific dream. However, more often than not, when Newt got home from his late-night excursions he would forget where he had placed the journal and thus forget the journal existed entirely. His object permanence was objectively nonpermanent. It was an exhausting thing to keep track of but when he was sober it was nice to look back on dreams he barely recalls having. In fact, he wouldn’t even think they had genuinely occurred unless they were written down in his recognisable handwriting combination of cursive and all capitals.

The dream he was having tonight was different though, it... Hurt. Usually, Newt’s dreams were full of fun saving the world adventures that ended in some kind of celebration, his favourites being the celebrations he shared with Hermann. This dream felt different when it started and it was horrifying by the end. The tears and caskets, children fighting in a war they had no business fighting in, helicopters taking down the Japanese woman in his human evolution course. And of course, there was Hermann, Hermann with tears in his eyes, Hermann with a hand around his throat which, to Newt's horror, was the biologist's own. When he woke up screaming a mere two hours later, Hermann bolted up and bumped his head on the ceiling.

“Christ, Newton, what is wrong? Why are you screaming?” Hermann asked, rubbing the top of his head and half-glaring at the man whose hand was held at a distance in front of him.

Newt couldn’t catch his breath, his chest heaving with every sharp inhale he took. The parade of coffins reappearing whenever he closed his eyes and he choked back a sob. His shoulders shook with effort and he pulled his knees up to his chest with the arm that wasn't attached to the hand he suddenly wished he could cut off of his body entirely. Hermann’s voice from across the room sounded so distant as if he were underwater. He heard something along the lines of “this is a symptom” and “we need to get you to the doctor” and “Newton, please, please look at me” and suddenly another pair of hands were on his shoulders.

He tried to stop shaking. He completely ceased in his crying. He looked at Hermann with a smile on his face even though his heart and brain were still going a mile a minute, he didn’t want Hermann to see him breakdown over nothing more than a dream. Nothing more than a figment of his sick imagination, it would make him appear weak to cry in front of someone else. After all, kaiju weren’t real and neither were those coffins, but Hermann seated in front of him with his hair all messed up from sleep and his face all contorted with worry was very real. Newton was suddenly desperate for the real.

“Ha… haha, no worries, Herm! Don’t you ever just get the undying need to scream?” Newton chuckled, playing it off as best he could. It was like flipping a switch, he was always very good at flipping the switch between an overabundance of emotion and a mannequin-esque existence that had him looking and feeling like a hollow shell incapable of actual, genuine feeling. Hell, if he could major in pretending to be stable he'd have already earned all hundred-and-twenty credits necessary to graduate.

Hermann just looked more worried at this but suddenly steeled his expression. He slowly laid the two of them down, Newton under the covers and Hermann on top of them. Hermann draped his arm over Newt’s waist and rested his forehead and the base of Newt’s neck. Hermann’s breath was shaky, the kind of physical affection clearly not something he gave very often and it only made Newt feel worse-- he was making Hermann uncomfortable. He didn't want to make Hermann uncomfortable, he wanted to make Hermann feel safe, feel loved, feel cared for. Feel as if even if he died at that moment he would know how much Newton cared and how thankful he was.

“I’ve got you," Hermann said.

Newton wasn’t quite sure how to explain to Hermann that he didn’t need to be… gotten, in a word. He may have a racing mind and heart and sweat accumulating at the small of his back and on his brow but that didn’t mean he needed Hermann to coddle him to sleep. He hated being coddled, being coddled was like being pitied and being pitied was not something Newt felt he deserved. He did this to himself, it was his own consciously bad decisions that led him down this road and he was very certain a man of logic, such as Hermann, would understand that and withhold his pity.

His attempt to wiggle away didn’t work, Hermann’s arm only tightening with the same unexpected strength his face did when he was truly concentrated. Newton didn’t remember when he had realised Hermann’s face did that but apparently he knew this information and it only made him tip closer to the edge of losing his mind completely. He sat up and pointed towards Hermann’s bed, the medication in his system slowly coming to action as he felt a wave of exhaustion crash through him. “Go to bed. I am fine.”

The lie hung in the air with such obviousness that Newt felt stupid for even saying it but despite this Hermann let go. Hermann went back to his own bed. Hermann moved his pillow to be on the same side as Newt’s and laid down on his side despite the obvious grimace of pain as he did it. Hermann watched with wide-awake eyes, watched for signs he was needed, that Newt was overdosing, that there was something, anything, he could fix. He watched with a heavy heart as Newt’s eyes drifted closed and his lips parted ever so slightly, a gentle snore passing through them. He would almost look peaceful if not for the tremors that still rocked his body.

Hermann could always get a different roommate, could always just let Newton destroy himself from the inside out so that he wouldn’t be Hermann’s problem anymore. That was the rub, however, he had _become_ Hermann’s problem, his new mathematical equation that he was so determined to solve it made his stomach lurch and his intestines tie themselves in knots. He would spend the next four years rooming with the man who lives and dies every single day, just for the opportunity to solve whatever it is that drives him. The monsters in his head with names like “knifehead”, “otachi” and “leatherback”, Hermann half considered being Newton’s, _Gipsy Danger_.

“Thank you, Hermann.”

He turned onto his other side, pain shooting but tolerable now, he’d be here as long as he was needed and then even more. Not even a ten-year span of no communication could make Hermann abandon Newt. Never in a million lifetimes. He wondered how he could tell Newt that he did, in fact, often, feel the undying need to scream. Scream about the math that always ran through his head and the emptiness that seemed to plague his chest, the neverending barrage of logic that overwhelmed all of his senses at all times. He wanted to scream his loneliness away but Newton’s would have to go first. He was adopting a bad habit of needing to put Newton Geiszler first.


End file.
